E-mail is now the most widely used method for hacking into corporate networks, stealing identities, crippling information technology systems, and committing online crimes, according to Mark Sunner, chief technical officer of MessageLabs, the world's leading provider of messaging security. Most companies and government agencies, however, are using antiquated protection methods for incoming e-mails while the spammers, especially Russian criminal gangs, are progressively more sophisticated in their e-mail attacks. Although fewer viruses are being sent through e-mails, the new viruses are much more efficient and difficult to identify and track. Sunner indicates that his company addresses spam attacks by intercepting the spam before it reaches corporate computer network boundaries, i.e., on the Internet side. In this regard, companies are now beginning to ask why their Internet service providers (ISPs) are letting the equivalent of raw sewage through to customers, leaving it to the customers to deal with it. Spam can never be completely stopped, because for every measure to counter it, sophisticated spammers find a way to defeat it. The best that can be done is to slow down the volume and trace the source of the greatest threats. During the next 2 years, it will become normal for responsible ISPs to perform some level of scanning at the Internet level, using ever more sophisticated technologies.